found a picture of his. I think I posted it in my c1 thread a long time ago... but this is more topical

 

Great photos

 

Those really are great photos of you and your father! He seemed to be really proud of his Corvette!

 

He enjoyed saying he had it.. for a year. He was a good 4 inches taller than me and just didn't fit. It's a long story but the car was actually a gift from a client and he sold it before taxes were due. He bragged for 20 years about his fastest trip from San Diego to Tucson though.

Today the heater bypass valve got replaced.


Old one out. It seems like the one I bought is rebuilt. I wonder if I should keep this around instead of putting it in the scrap pile


the vacuum connector coming from the "engine harness" It wasn't melted really, it was ex-vulcanized.


The connector was corroded, but I checked and it seems to conduct fine (after using some electronics cleaner and sand paper. I Jumped it and the compressor clutch engaged. I think the real issue is that I poked one of the a/c schrader valves with a stick and it has absolutely zero pressure. I would assume the 2 wires sensors on the lines would keep it from activating.


All together. New clamps, that one right angle piece I cut out of another hose and all. The valve now closes when it's supposed to. Yay, one more vacuum leak fixed.


I need to find another method for burping this thing. I have two of these funnel kits and neither sits upright on the vette. When it gets near 200 the plastic gets soft and it falls over. Luckily I learned two knots that are technically hitches in boy scouts like 30 years ago.

 

I just let the hood down enough to get the scissor prop to start to fold a little, prop the hood up with a proper length stick then the funnel fits under the partly folded scissor.

But.... I like your method better.

 

I frequently tell people that Tucson has the best ace hardware, but I'm only half joking. This was a extremely specific ask and they had it. (4 screws that hold the gas cover on were worn out)







They also had whatever these things are. I don't really know what they do. Maybe they aren't big enough but installing them doesn't keep the rear hatch from making noise. Maybe it steadies the plastic itself.


I mentioned it in another thread, but I installed hwstar led lights. They are great, but the early c4 headlight housings aren't. They twitch up and down with hard bumps. I checked all the bolts and rubber stops and everything is in place. The big issue seems to be that the rubber or maybe the structure of the hood it braces against lets the headlight travel up a bit after the bumps makes the assembly go down. It overshoots and flashes people for a fraction of a second. It's also distracting. I think I may try 3d printing a stop with pla so it can't overshoot the landing so much.



This stuff is amazing. I think I've saved about 1k in switches and connectors so far (or at least the 20 dollars the can cost) Neither of my door hatch switches worked. Most of the threads I've read on here say that it's unlikely two switches failed and that it's probably the light timer relay board... My lights worked fine though so I sprayed some Deoxit in the switches and worked them a bit. Now they both work!.


Now they both work!.

That's so much more convenient than crawling over to the center console to open it every time.

 

Those 'bumpers' (I don't know what to call them either) steady the roof panel when it is stowed in its position in the cargo area.

 

Maintinance update. kinda.

It's been doing pretty well as my more fuel efficient shop truck. I've been getting 18-20 around town and my 6 cyl f-150 gets 14.


I will say that driving around at night isn't great. Here is a reenactment of sitting in traffic in front of a suv.


I started to hear the water pump over the radio so I thought I would sneak in there and fix it, turns out most of everything has to come off the front. Also turns out all the hoses connected to the power steering just dump the fluid out as fast as possible. Hopefully this means my rack isn't leaking.


Like I said I was planning to sneak in and just do the pump, but by the time you get in there it's only a couple more bolts to take off the ps and alternator pulleys. So everything got a bath



All done and clean from the front of the engine to the radiator... okay not below the cross member or outside of the wheel liners.
First time it has real coolant in it under my ownership. I've been flushing it about once a month up to now. Hopefully it stays bright green instead of turning that rusty green sewer color.
I probably will have to do the air pump some day. It's not making noise but when I was cleaning it it just doesn't feel or sound good. Also could have planned to do the timing cover and dampener, but now that I've done it once it isn't so daunting. Most of the time spend it trying to figure out what the order of disassembly is. Also ignore the trans funnel and rag stuffed under the coolant reservoir. That means NOTHING.


Then it was time to go at the power brake booster. It would build pressure eventually and feel kinda safe to drive, but I would like it to be actually safe. I think the master cylinder is okay though. It has a great pedal and I don't see anything leaking.
I've never had to replace one of these completely by feel before. That was neat.


The new master cylinder should be here on Friday.


Every time I do this people look at me like I'm a crazy genius, but I swear someone showed it to me. Just stick a piece of paper behind the nut and push it into the socket. Shouldn't come out till you have it threaded onto something.


The master cylinder I bought was from davies. It's got a little different profile than the Australian Girlock model but fits okay. Oddly the vacuum connection is on the upper part of the unit, but the oem hose can be cut in a way where the routing looks okay.

 

I think my order of fixing things has changed. I really wanted to fix every leak, but it was 100 f for most of the last week and It's my most exconomical car so I think I'm gonna figure out the air conditioning.

Still, I got the new master cylinder bled and installed. Between that and the new booster it's amazing how good the brakes are now that I have brakes. It stopped okay before, but it took pedal bending pressure to lock up the tires. Now it just stops, like a real car.
I did put in an hour with a squirt bottle of soap and a rag on a 100 degree day to get as close to detailing the engine as I'll ever come. If I really wanted it to be clean I would need to do the valve covers, timing chain cover, and oil pan gaskets. I also don't know what exactly is up with the cruise control. It works sometimes. I think I've had my hands on every vacuum hose and connector in the engine and that end of the circuit holds vacuum long after the engine has been turned off. I also tested the lines that go back into the cab for cruise and hvac and they appear to be good. Maybe it's at the switch of possibly the cruise unit itself. I'll have to read up on how that works.




I may also try to clean out the charcoal canister since it seems to be filled with rotten gas. Every time I have the tank over 3/4 full it pees a little out the front. Sometime a lot.




3 of my old fuel sender bolts were nearly rusted in place and I had replaced them with whatever I could find at ace. They were cheap so I put in a set with the correct o ring.





I also did what I swear will be my final double check that the rust is all out of the tank. It looks pretty clear so I'm going to install the rubber diaper I bought a while ago... I think I'll have to go back in there again through because the fuel sender is just not cooperating. Sometimes it's full, sometimes it's where I expect it to be, but all the time when the gauge is empty I still have a half tank. I've tried bending it every which way but it doesn't care. I wonder if the 84 needs a different unit. The plug was different so I modified it with my old one. Dunno.





I'm one of the weirdos that actually wants a spare tire, but I thought i would try to tighten the mounting bits since everything was loose and making a racket. Turns out the spare is 40 years old, I have no jack, and what was left of the carrier disintegrated when I touched it.
So it's a weight saving spare tire delete till I can find those parts for cheap.





I got a new ... this thing. The old one had been over tightened. The passenger door panel is missing pieces here and there plus the window is slow. Probably means somebody has been in there before. I will need a bag full of those off white plastic screw inserts the screws go into they are pretty much all stripped.





That's all for this week.

 

You're doing great work on your 84!! I need to do the same with the brakes. A new booster and master cylinder would really help. My master cylinder is starting to seep so its definitely past time. Your engine bay detail looks great as well! GM really did a wonderful job designing each iteration of the C4 engine bay and when they're clean, they look phenomenal! It's pretty wild to see that the spare tire carrier crumbled like that. But given your location and the fact that you state thats its already getting very hot, I can understand why it didn't last. The new door vent covers look really nice. Where did you pick them up at?

 

I don't think it was as much the heat as it is it looks like it's taken a few big hits. Maybe when they were using the jack and put the normal tire in the spare compartment they didn't slow down. The aluminum bits on the corers are the parts that broke.
I got it from davies, luckily it's not one of the many interior parts listed as discontinued.
https://corvetteparts.com/item/defle...tlet-1984-1989

 

The only labor I've paid for was getting tries mounted and balanced. Just in case anybody was wondering how much a 2k dollar corvette costs. I'm sure there is some stuff missing too.

 

A couple more weeks of updates.

Finally changed out the shocks. The right rear was actively dripping which is a first for me. Apparently you can do the front ones with the tires on the ground. That's cool I guess.




Then I found a guy who was parting a 84 and he had a good passenger door light. Now every light works in the car. I also took his manual driver seat rails. I decided I don't care if the electric seats work again. I really just want them to move back and forth also from what I've read it may give me a little more headroom.





I still haven't re sealed the transmission, but I did find a core from a 87 with the stronger spline thingy for a couple hundred dollars. He was replacing it with a 4l60e just to work with his ls setup and said it still worked well. It's a GM rebuild and the seals look like they are newish. I had planned to rebuild, but now I'm thinking of just throwing it in and seeing how it does. I didn't know it was full when picking it up. I usually drain them to make them lighter. Now my car is full.



After that maybe win my cluster started speaking in tongues last Saturday. Then it died completely and the fuse would immediately blow when inserted. I ordered a power supply from batee and it was delivers in like 3 business days. That's wild for a strange 40 year old car computer power supply. Not to mention it's their own design. Those people are weird.





The first try didn't work, but the fuse stopped blowing but then the lights didn't work at all. I got all my finest electronic bs together to try to scare it into working, no dice. I figured I did something wrong and re tried attaching it to the main board a couple times (in the picture I'm at the point where I have individual wires run because I thought I broke their ribbon cable. Turns out the spring pin connector between the two boards was probably fine till I unplugged it, but didn't make the connection after re assembly. I shoved a pick in the spring pin things to bend them back into place and it works now, but I'm going to just order those parts in advance for when it fails completely.





Anyway, now that works, plus the led upgrade that makes it easier to see in the day, but not particularly great looking at night. It's bright here a lot of the year so I think it's a okay trade off. I didn't see anything about it anywhere else and had to call batee's support, but the LED's are kinda long and push the metal shrouds out the front. They said that was fine so I taped them in place, but I think that may be another 84 issue.




Another 84 only issue I did finally find people talking about here is that you need to drop the column or pull the dashboard to get the cluster out. Something about a angle changing from 84 to 85. I love being special! BTW the best way I've found to work on the interior is put the car 3-4 feet in the air on a lift and just lean into it.



I have had a set of 90's recaro seats from a Isuzu that have been busy not selling on marketplace or Craigslist for the last couple years. Unless I wanted to ship seats, and I don't. A guy asked if I would trade for some 17" c6z copies and I folded. They need to be re finished badly. He went at the paint with some kind of axe or possibly dull beaver. It is one of my goals to autocross it for fun though and that will be easier with a better (less expensive) performance tire selection than the 16's offer. They will need some 20-25 mm spacers I think, but they don't look that bad (as far as the style, the finish looks terrible).







That's it... Here are some shots I took with a rolleiflex to remind myself I don't hate the car when the dash was dead.